SusanCombs

Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget

Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget

In August 2018, Susan Comb’s was named the Interior Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget. From March 2018 to August 2018, Combs was Interior’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. President Trump had originally nominated Combs to serve as “an assistant secretary of the Interior for policy, management and budget,” but her nomination got stuck “in Capitol Hill limbo.”

A San Antonio native, Susan Combs has been a figure in Texas politics for decades and has consistently worked to undermine the Endangered Species Act. After working on Wall Street in the 1960s, Combs went to law school and then worked as an assistant district attorney in Dallas. From 1993 to 1996, she was a Texas state Representative before she spent a brief stint working for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Combs was elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner in 1998, a position she was re-elected to in 2002. In 2006, Combs was elected Texas Comptroller, a position she held until 2015. Since 2015, Combs has worked as a “Principal” at the Maravillas Group and has been a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank that has received significant funding from ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, and Koch brother affiliates.

Special Interests

Texas Wildlife Association (Resource Development on Public Lands)

Combs served on the Board of Directors for the Texas Wildlife Association, a "property rights group" that has supported legislation to "thwart the Endangered Species Act and other environmental initiatives."

Texas Oil and Gas Association (Resource Development on Public Lands)

While Combs was Texas Comptroller, she charged the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation, an organization created by Texas Oil and Gas Association lobbyists, with overseeing the protection of the dunes sagebrush lizard.

Texas Public Policy Foundation (Resource Development on Public Lands)

Combs is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank that has received significant funding from ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Devon Energy, and Koch brother affiliates.

Chesapeake Operating LLC (Resource Development on Public Lands)

According to Combs' OGE 278 Form, Chesapeake Operating LLC operates an oil and gas lease that Combs owns and pays her rent or royalties for the lease. In 2016 she received between $15,001 and $50,000 in income from Chesapeake.

Carrizo Oil & Gas LLC (Resource Development on Public Lands)

According to Combs' OGE 278 Form, Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. operates an oil and gas lease that Combs owns and pays her rent or royalties for the lease. In 2016 she received between $5,001 and $15,000 in income from Carrizo.

Murphy Oil Corporation (Resource Development on Public Lands)

According to Combs' OGE 278 Form, Murphy Oil Corporation operates an oil and gas lease that Combs owns and pays her rent or royalties for the lease. In 2016 she received between $100,001 and $1,000,000 in income from Murphy.

ConocoPhillips (Resource Development on Public Lands)

According to Combs' OGE 278 Form, Conoco-Phillips operates an oil and gas lease that Combs owns and pays her rent or royalties for the lease. In 2016 she received between $100,001 and $1,000,000 in income from Conoco-Phillips.

Phillips 66 (Resource Development on Public Lands)

According to Combs' OGE 278 Form, Phillips operates an oil and gas lease that Combs owns and pays her rent or royalties for the lease. In 2016 she received between $1,001 and $2,500 in income from Phillips 66.

Marathon Oil Corporation (Resource Development on Public Lands)

According to Combs' OGE 278 Form, Marathon Oil Co. operates an oil and gas lease that Combs owns and pays her rent or royalties for the lease. In 2016 she received between $50,001 and $100,000 in income from Marathon.

While Susan Combs was Texas State Representative in the 1990s, she “passed a law designed to restrict the state from sharing data,” data that “might be used to designate species as threatened or endangered,” with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

As state representative she also “passed a law allowing landowners to sue if state environmental actions devalued their property by more than 25 percent.”

Under Susan Combs’ leadership as Texas Comptroller, the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation, an industry-funded foundation created by oil and gas lobbyists, was charged with “overseeing the protection” of the “dunes sagebrush lizard.” The subsequent comptroller fired the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation because it “failed to perform any of the habitat restoration work it was supposed to do.”

While Susan Combs was Texas Comptroller, the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation was charged with “overseeing the protection” of the “dunes sagebrush lizard.” The foundation was “created… by the petroleum industry specifically to manage protection of the tiny brown lizard in lieu of listing the species as endangered, which could have severely limited oil production in the area.” The board members who created the foundation were all “registered lobbyists for the powerful Texas Oil and Gas Association, also known as TXOGA.”

The plan “called for Permian Basin landowners — petroleum companies, primarily — to voluntarily keep track of the animal and preserve its habitat,” and progress was “monitored by a biologist paid by energy companies; federal biologists [were] not permitted to know which properties [were] included in the plan.” Combs “hailed” the Texas Conservation Plan, as “a landmark compromise that would protect both the lizard and the Texas economy without onerous federal regulations.”

In 2016 Glenn Hagar, who was Texas Comptroller after Combs, fired the Texas Habitat Conservation Foundation because the organization “failed to perform any of the habitat restoration work it was supposed to do.”

While she was Texas Comptroller, Susan Combs was a vocal critic of the Endangered Species Act, describing endangered species listings as “incoming SCUD missiles” and setting up a website to detail “potential impacts to the [Texas] economy of Endangered Species Act listings.”

Susan Combs, in 2011, said, “Washington is running amok” with listing species under the ESA, and that “the process that they use, for so-called listing – I think to call it ‘flawed’ is friendly. I think it’s nonexistent.”

While Susan Combs was Comptroller of Texas, her office “inadvertently released” “Social Security numbers and other personal information for 3.5 million people” on a publicly accessible computer server. The breach was “believed to be the most extensive ever in Texas and one of the largest of its kind nationally.”

While Susan Combs was Comptroller of Texas, her office “inadvertently released” “Social Security numbers and other personal information for 3.5 million people” on a “publicly accessible state computer server for a year or longer.” The information breach was “believed to be the most extensive ever in Texas and one of the largest of its kind nationally.” The Texas attorney general’s office and the FBI “launched a criminal investigation” into the breach.

Congressman Raúl Grijalva, in 2015, said “the Texas Public Policy Foundation…received $500,000 in funds from the Charles G. Koch Foundation and $2.5 million from Donors Trust, a think tank that advocates for limited government, from 2003 to 2010.”

Current Activity

Golden-Cheeked Warbler Delisting

In 2015, Susan Combs’ Political Action Committee, Texans for Positive Economic Policy, took “unused campaign money” and paid $25,000 to a Washington, D.C., law firm to file a delisting petition for the golden-cheeked warbler.

The golden-cheeked warbler’s protected status “prohibits development on valuable land in and around Austin.” Right-wing groups the Reason Foundation and the Texas Public Policy Foundation co-filed the brief with Combs’ super PAC.

In June 2016, the Fish and Wildlife Service, part of the Interior Department, rejected Combs’ bid to delist the golden-cheeked warbler because the “petition ‘did not present substantial information that delisting is warranted.'” However, in June 2017, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush “filed a lawsuit pursuing the dispute,” so the issue is ongoing.

According to Combs’ OGE 278 Form, she owns six oil and gas leases that various oil and gas companies operate on. It is not obvious whether or not these leases are federal or state, but if they are federal it could constitute a possible conflict of interest as the Interior Department regulates oil and gas leasing on federal lands.

According to Combs’ OGE 278 Form, she owns between $15,001 and $50,000 of stock in Lockheed Martin Corporation. This could constitute a possible conflict of interest, as Lockheed Martin is a major government contractor.

Financials

Other Information

In the mid-1980s, Susan Combs helped form a group to protect “property rights” against a National Park proposal and the listing of a certain pond weed as an endangered species.

In the mid-1980s, landowners in Susan Combs’ area “learned that federal authorities were eyeing hundreds of thousands of acres in the Davis Mountains region for a new national park” and that there was “a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list a pond weed, found on area ranches, as an endangered species.” In response, “Ms. Combs and others… formed the Davis Mountains-Trans Pecos Heritage Association to protect what they saw as their property rights.” The national park idea ultimately “died” but the pond weed was listed.

Until 2016, Susan Combs was on the Board of Directors for the Texas Wildlife Association, a “property rights group” whose PAC has supported legislation to “thwart the Endangered Species Act and other environmental initiatives.”

Susan Combs opposed nominating Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because he supported positions “taken by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Susan Combs, in 2016, wrote an op-ed opposing the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court because of “a series of decisions he rendered in support of positions taken by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Susan Combs once spoke on a panel with land transfer advocate Ken Ivory.

Susan Combs, in 2015, participated in a panel discussion with Ken Ivory. The panel was titled, “Halting the Feds at the State Line: States Learn to Command Respect” and was sponsored by the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Tenth Amendment Action.

In June 2012, Texas sales tax revenue increased 7.9 percent above where it had been the previous year. Susan Combs said that the increase “‘marks 26 consecutive months of sales tax growth'” and that “‘collections remain strong in the oil and natural gas-related sectors.'”

In 1990, Susan Combs “published a white-hot romance novel about a relationship between an NSA analyst and a spy that was repeatedly derided as pornographic during her 2006 campaign for agriculture commissioner.”